years ago. the first. resolution.

to the second part of the big picture. well for the. science technology innovation paul believes developments from around russia we've gone to the future covered. old means of protection can be used. when global supremacy does its take. between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine the u.s. has spent fifteen billion dollars in the price to pay for the entire program that we are dealing with right now here in two thousand and eleven is another one hundred fifty billion dollars that's larger than many country's entire military

budgets twenty things becomes the best for the defense. budget back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour the focus to a nuclear disaster happened thousands of miles away but could the very same thing or worse happen in our own backyards also americans sure do love to get their sugar highs but new research suggests sugar is not all sweet and facebook's initial public offering may create a fords of a thousand new millionaires who won one million as far off.

in the back as the rest of the news earlier this week california's san onofre nuclear power plant had to be unexpectedly shut down after radioactive water was discovered leaking out of the plant's unit three reactor officials claim the leak is fully contained within the concrete dome of the plant. this comes at the same time that the nuclear regulatory commission is warning that eighteen nuclear plants in the eastern and central portion the united states might not be able to withstand earthquakes or its after effects we're all aware of how earthquake and subsequent subsequent tsunami ravaged the fukushima nuclear power plant in japan the radiation leakage and poisons the n.r.c. is giving operators at vulnerable nuclear plants for years here in the united states to conduct seismic tests to determine if their plants can withstand earthquake however nuclear energy critics argue that the n.r.c. is moving too slowly to address the threat to the nation's nuclear plants and that as a result there is the possibility of the fukushima level disaster happening in the

united states joining me now to discuss the nation's aging nuclear infrastructure and the n.r.c. is new warning and what's going on in california is kevin camps radioactive waste watchdog would be a nuclear or kevin welcome thank you good to have you with us with regard to the sand is it the north freights and in a free synonym for a plant why should we worry about them venting radioactive steam well any exposure to radioactivity carries a health risk the higher the dose the greater the risk but these risks accumulate over a lifetime so when the nuclear regulatory commission or southern california edison says oh it was very low levels barely detectable well the thing is people live downwind they live downstream and we're being exposed to tritium from san onofre yesterday from byron illinois a couple days ago from perry island minnesota few days ago they announced they let be known that last november they had overflowing tritium and the prairie island indian community lives hundreds of yards away from this facility that's incredible

so we've got to treat him adam here what is tricky why should we care tritium is radioactive hydrogen it goes anywhere the hydrogen goes which is everywhere in your body in your body in the environment it can go down to the d.n.a. level inside your body and it packs a pretty powerful. at the d.n.a. level or in your cells that would be the electrons and particles and whatnot it's a beta matter but if you were to listen to the nuclear regulatory commission or the nuclear industry they treat tritium like it's not even radioactive or they say well you know it's mildly radioactive and it dilutes into the environment a beta matter it's thrown off approach and it's a beta emitter and at those intimate levels it does significant health damage it's a clinically proven cause of cancer birth defects and genetic damage right i mean that would knock if it d.n.a. it could knock one of the u.s. it's right out of the chain and put a hole and the reason that you know these are leaks these are steam generator leaks of radioactive tritium steam into the environment as they try to get these things

back under control but they allow these tritium releases on a regular basis by permit because they can't filter it out at such a small atom hydrogen it can pass through certain grades of steel it's actually the second smallest thing there is yeah. and so yeah they're having these leaks but they let this be discharged into the rivers into the oceans into the air on a regular basis and it's doing itself damage downwind and now the stream that's incredible and so there's no way to filter it there's no way to stop it there's no way to block it and so they just say don't worry be happy do they even bother to detect it well that was one of the misleading statements made by the n.r.c. in illinois at byron with this radioactive tritium steam being emitted that was because of a fire and in that case they said hey we know that the tritium levels aren't high because the radiation monitors aren't picking it up while a group that we work with called nuclear energy information service did and the

media to the state and the state of illinois said we don't have monitors on site that can detect tritium we have to send that out to a lab so we don't know what the levels are yet so the deception is just all too common so they don't even monitor for the stuff because there's no way to filter it out so there was a do some monitoring they do sampling but it takes time to get the. results back so when they said it's all safe you can't say that a radioactivity release is safe that's that's a misnomer there's no safe level of exposure to radioactivity right they've they've done a cost benefit and they've decided it's acceptably risky but there appear to affect very portable scanners they know that you know one hundred americans are probably going to get cancer from them well you know that's worth you know not having a terrorist incident. new lid steam generators what's what's the deal with this it's this is a standard offering well the amazing thing about this steam generator to brew up here at santa know free is that this is a new steam generator these are just over a year old and they've had they have defects and they're failing these were

supposed to last like twenty five years it's just over a year old so we're seeing the same thing at three mile island we're seeing the same thing at arkansas nuclear one brand new steam generators these are major organ transplants the old ones were too degraded to keep using so they put new ones in and these are failing so these decades old riyadh where these things made well the one at santa know free. i don't know for sure but the one at three mile island in arkansas nuclear one that's a french product that's a real france that's why those steam generators and they're not working here. these you mentioned lids brand new lids from a company called babcock and wilcox canada have been installed on six reactors but we know from the palisades reactor in michigan that they're brand new live from the same factory is defective so they didn't put it on they have an old corroded lid that they're sticking by which is frightening because they're too worried about this new wood being so defective but six reactors including beaver valley and pennsylvania put lids from this factory on their reactors and we don't know if

those were defective or not they could be and we won't know until what we're seeing to grow up to san onofre if you have a domino effect a cascade of two brothers and there's thousands of these tubes in these steam generators you could have a loss of coolant accident in the core which could lead to a meltdown which could lead to china syndrome burn through containment and a catastrophic radioactivity release so it would become it could become fukushima worse than fukushima or you could have actually we don't know yet how bad fukushima is going to get if you have a bad enough. steam generator failure and we had a close call indian point near new york city it was february of two thousand and they blew a steam tube and r.c. had let them operate to the brink of failure and then it failed and if they had had a cascade i mean this is twenty five thirty miles from new york city they had another radioactive steam released at that time into the hudson river valley so these nukes are getting old and dangerous we're in the breakdown phase of the nuclear power in this country and. well and now the n.r.c.

is saying ok you all have four years to check out these plants to make sure that they're ok with an earthquake we had an earthquake here in washington d.c. a few few months yeah august twenty third the north anna plant had damage on the site they only inspected one of the reactors and let both of them restart assuming that the other one was the same as the other one they had damage to their radioactive waste so mary climb all over the washington monument find every single crack there not check in the nuclear plant it was a very quick turnaround. restart and we're seeing that at davis bessie in ohio they have a cracked concrete steel building and they let them restart anyway even though they don't know the root cause they don't know the extent of the cracking and they don't know how to fix the problem so the n.r.c. is really out doing itself i mean it's this is a captive this is very literary capture this is very much regulatory agency that's taking huge risks on these hasty restarts i mean kevin thanks so much for being with us i think it's great to see nuclear power is the most dangerous and most

expensive form of electric power generation in the world and would not exist in the united states without massive taxpayer subsidies and guarantees in the price anderson act and other legislation it's time for all of us to say no nukes. and sugar and spice and everything. nice according to a commentary in study published in the journal nature added sugar and related sweeteners are so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated and treated as strictly as alcohol and tobacco the researchers who conducted the study argued that because of the dangers of sugar to the health of individuals and should be taxed high sugar substances should be banned from schools an age limit should be placed on buying high sugar foods the researchers in particular cited studies that indicated high fructose corn syrup

a form of sugar is harmful to society and to our health as are alcohol and tobacco while it's common knowledge that added sugar in excess can be bad for health the fact that it can be toxic as toxic as alcohol this is a new revelation. the problem is that the main substance and high fructose corn syrup and most added sugars is metabolized by the liver much like alcohol is and similar to the effects alcohol has on the liver fructose can also tax the liver causing fatty liver disease leading to insulin resistance which is one of the underlying causes of both diabetes and obesity it's no secret that diabetes diabetes and obesity are both major problems facing americans today in the united states more than two thirds of the population is overweight and half of them can be considered obese about eighty percent of those who are obese will have diabetes or other metabolic disorders at some point their lives and in turn will have shortened lives according to the researchers of the commentary similarly about seventy five

percent of the money spent on health care in the united states is spent on diet related diseases combining the fact that the average american consumes more than forty teaspoons of sugar per day with the fact that there is already a massive obesity and diabetes problem in america makes these researchers call for banning and taxing sugary foods seem like a pretty good idea although it will put a few dentists out of business. crazy alert love takes many forms especially in sweden to sweden's most notorious murderers the scar a cannibal and the vampire woman are madly in love and hope to get married according to a swedish newspaper the gruesome twosome met at their high security psychiatric ward in a prison in eastern sweden and spent many hours chatting and internet in an internet

chat with the couple got together on of amber thirteenth became engaged on december nineteenth said michelle aslan a.k.a. the vampire woman in case you're wondering she got her name by posting pictures on her blog of herself dressed as a vampire with bloody lips after having stabbed to death a father of four in stockholm not to be outdone scare a cannibal the soon to be groom got his notorious nickname by killing his previous girlfriend cutting her apart into pieces and then eating many of those pieces a couple hope to be released in years to come and ultimately lead a normal domestic life talk about a match made in l. . coming up after the break reports suggest that facebook's i.p.o. will create up to a thousand new millionaires but is that what america really needs.

the close of his dream to the whole bar of screeching for the country's middle wealth starts its way across the ocean. now our team goes to the area. once named dr len and good looking to a different character to represent itself. for local businesses are striving to build the aviation capital of russia. that's where the four by fours are made and can be tested to the limit. welcome to the. russia close up. wealthy british style. time. market. has come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with max conjure for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on. your take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments rants and observations about anything we talk about here on the big picture or during my radio show or first your comments and i comes from facebook in response to our story this week about grover norquist calling for the impeachment of president obama dave argues in peace with. it's not a coup d'etat that's a gross misinterpretation the or misrepresentation the constitution lays out what the various branches of government can do and if those rules are violated impeachment is a viable solution every single president since including wilson should to face this but that's another discussion altogether well yeah that is another discussion

altogether especially considering that every president since jimmy carter. literally every since every president since jimmy carter has started their own new war without the approval of congress carter was the last one not to but this isn't about impeachment this is about the very very wealthy in america doing whatever they can to make sure their taxes don't go up short of marching army into washington d.c. like the oligarchy conspired to do in one nine hundred thirty four i personally believe we live in a revolutionary times right now in america and the counter-revolutionaries those same banks and bought off politicians who crashed our economy a few years back are hell bent on not losing power if you want to stop them we you and i we need to get involved in the political process show up and occupy something . that's it for my take your take tonight if you like your comments and questions heard on the segment the big picture listen up we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page but twitter at tom underscore her more in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at

thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our ramp line at two o two by three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the air. i got. today is groundhog day which means it's time for bucs autonomy filled to predict whether or not we're headed for six more weeks of winter in fact i think we have some footage of phil today there's his head just peeking above the ground he's just waking up from hibernation and now he's almost out of the ground it is agon that's not part of the army phillips trump what the heck is going on here that's right trump hijacked groundhog day to tease the mainstream media with a presidential endorsement this morning as people fooled the new york times into believing he was going to endorse newt gingrich after all they have a lot in common like multiple voices divorce lawyers but later word got around that

instead the da would endorse front runner mitt romney and sure enough this afternoon from las vegas the donald on the mitt appeared together for a giant spectacle of rich guy but kissing. it's my honor rely on her and privilege to endorse mitt romney and by the way this is a great couple you look at this crowd there are some things that you just can't imagine happening in your life this is one of the. ike so i guess great heads of hair are drawn toward each other and so too are people who make a living firing other people in related news punxsutawney phil did indeed see his shadow this morning and we have six more weeks left in an unseasonably mild winter . the good the bad and the very very junket taisha slee ugly the good.

granda corporation the australian based bus company was recently sold by the grand a family for over four hundred million dollars rather than keep all that money for themselves like most american corporate honchos would family decided to reward their loyal employees with bonus payments ranging from eight thousand to thirty thousand dollars each in total a family gave gave away around sixteen million dollars to the employees of the company in describing the decision to pay the workers c.e.o. jeff granda said we sat down and thought how can we thank the people that have got us to where we're going to end up it was a fairly easy decision for us. you know in an age where corporations and c.e.o.'s care more about their bonuses than the else it's really refreshing to see a company that genuinely appreciates the work and loyalty that. the bad. rupert murdoch mirage news corporation has been hit again with new allegations of phone

hacking in england as empire was day dealt a major blow last year and to merge the phone hacking was a common tactic used to gain information and news of the world once popular british tabloid scandal involving hacking of phones of celebrities british royals even the phone of a murdered teenager today a british lawmaker announced that an investigation has been opened into the use of e-mail hacking at the times of london the flagship murdoch's british usage empire this is an important revelation considering previous investigations in the mubarak's papers had not involved email had also given with the times of london as one of burdocks flagship papers it's possible that other prominent. newspapers and the outlets in this empire are using the same tactics in the one say the wall street journal or fox so-called news one of murdoch learn the freedom of the press doesn't include the use of illegal activities and the very very ugly senator mike lee the tea party senator from utah has been adamant about exacting revenge for

president obama's recent recess appointments and for consumer and worker protections officials he had previously said that he would engage in a scorched earth campaign of obstruction against each of the nominees well yesterday he stepped up as vitriolic rhetoric by tweeting jan fourth two thousand and twelve may well be a day that will live on and then for great as the day the congress ceded one of its rightful powers to the executive as take c.f.b. be the phrase he used. live on the day of infamy is of course the one used by franklin roosevelt franklin delano roosevelt to describe the horrors and atrocities witnessed the attack on pearl harbor sen league compared the reese the recess appointment of four officials two of the most horrifying and deadly days in american history. people utah are represented by a man who compares a personal disagreement to

a monumental american tragedy and throws around words like sabotage obstruction and scorched earth and promoting his agenda that is very fair. you know if you are outdoors at night in the forest naked cold and hungry i think it would be reasonable to say that you're unhappy. well know that and if somebody came out and said hey come on inside you know we're going to bring in make you warm give you some clothing sit in front of a comfortable fire have a meal you'd be full and happier so we know that you know if this much stuff you know there's an actual change in the amount of stuff the it have can actually affect your happiness and this has led to

a sales pitch basically a cultural belief that well if this much stuff will make you that happy then twice as much stuff make it twice as happy ten times as much stuff most make ten times that one hundred times as tough one hundred times a thousand times as much stuff about was about and bill gates and mark zuckerberg must live in a state of perpetual the lists total exodus facebook announced today that they're going to do an i.p.o. and it's going to make a thousand new millionaires why are americans so into becoming millionaires why is it that the american dream since ronald reagan's time before reagan there the american dream was let's get into the middle class but since reaganomics the american dream has been recalibrated to i want to be a millionaire i don't do this in europe why is it that we have here and they don't know the answer is really pretty straightforward because to have real security you

have to have a strong social safety net you have to have health care for everybody you have to have a real retirement available to you you have to know that if you lose your job through no fault of your own there's real have employment that's actually enough to live on and that if something happens to you god forbid you get disabled or you give birth to a child who's disabled there's not going to wipe you out that you have disability insurance you know in europe and in some south american countries in australia they have it we don't so americans obsess on getting so rich that we can provide our own security because the minute because the state doesn't. and in an era when one illness can literally cost you a million bucks wipe you out being a millionaire is basically the only security available to people in the united states this is profoundly dysfunctional the whole purpose of community is to produce security for the community i mean traditionally you look at

traditional societies and what they do is people all day long produce security and then they consume security and then they produce a curate in the process you know goods and services gets spun off what we do in our societies we produce goods and services and out of that comes some money and then we use that money to try and buy some security and you know if you don't have millions you can't buy that kind of security in this country which is really tragic when you think about it i mean it's profoundly tragic the whole this whole sense of community you know the community that we have here in this country the at the largest sense is the united states we should be organizing our economy to provide a real security for all of us not just for the rich instead what are we getting are getting republicans running around on oh we need to have right do it right to work for less laws in indiana arizona declaring war on working people wisconsin and

michigan on going to war against for a working people in florida a war on poor people with drug testing i mean it's time to wake up to the fact that there are very real human values that are part of a successful experience of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and thomas jefferson wrote those words into the declaration of independence we were the first nation in the history of the world to have the word happiness in our founding document and consider it for a minute you cannot have life. if you don't have a social safety net if you don't have a national healthcare program if you don't have if you don't know that no matter what happens with you have a job with you dealt with you're born into a rich family or poor but no matter what you can't have life if you don't have access to those things you can't have liberty if you don't have those things as

franklin roosevelt said so famously one hundred thirty six in june of one hundred thirty six he said obsessive this man is not a free man you are free if you're homeless now free if you're sick and you can't pay for free if you're jobless and the pursuit of happiness how can we pursue happiness when one we're constantly concerned about survival that is you know is just it's a pure dysfunction if we want to get back to life liberty the pursuit of happiness in the united states we need to seriously look at the way that they've done in other countries that actually works as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech dot org and dot com also check out our two you tube channels or links or. entire shows available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone an i pad app in the app store and you send us feedback at twitter at tom underscore our on facebook underscore our our blogs message

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